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PI OriginalSteven Ross JohnsonTuesday November 22nd, 2011, 12:02pm

Housing Safety Net Frays As Demand Grows, Says Report

Large cuts within this year’s state budget are forcing more than half
of Illinois’ homeless prevention providers to make significant cuts to
their services over the next couple of months, according to a new
report released Monday.

Large cuts within this year’s state budget are forcing more than half
of Illinois’ homeless prevention providers to make significant cuts to
their services over the next couple of months, according to a new
report released Monday. Under the state’s budget, funding for the
Illinois Homeless Prevention Program, which provides rental assistance
in the form of one-time grants to aid those facing eviction or
foreclosure, has been reduced by 37 percent compared to last year – down
from $2.4 million to $1.5 million.

As a result, as many as 55
percent of the agencies that provide rental assistance grants could run
out of funding by the end of next month, while an estimated 62 percent
of state-funded shelters and transitional housing programs have resorted
to reducing staff and limiting the number of clients they serve,
according to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, the Chicago
Alliance to End Homelessness and the Housing Alliance, which co-authored
the report.

“When the program was funded at $11milllion, they
[providers] were serving 12,000 to 14,000 households a year,” said Julie
Dworkin, director of policy for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.
“So with the cuts, they’re probably going to serve maybe 1,000 to 1,500
– so over 10,000 households are affected.”

Dworkin said agencies
administering homeless prevention grants have seen an 87 percent
decrease in state funding since 2008, while money slated for emergency
and transitional housing providers has been cut by 52 percent compared
to last year.

According to Housing Action Illinois Policy
Director Bob Palmer, the resulting impact is one that has been felt by
service providers throughout the state.

“We know anecdotally from
the providers and also the data the state collects that it has been a
very effective program in terms of keeping people housed,” Palmer said,
regarding the homeless prevention program. “In the recessionary
environment that we continue to struggle with, not having these funds
available is a big loss.”

Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and
Human Rights Senior Director for Housing Maura McCauley said the
problems currently facing many providers are compounded by the impending
loss next year of federal funding provided by the 2009 American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act, of which Illinois has received at total
of $71 million.

“The stimulus fund actually gave us the ability
to serve a lot more people,” McCauley said. “We‘re going from serving
about a thousand people over the last two years to being able to serve
about 120.”

McCauley added that budget cuts over the last few
years have forced her to reduce her case management staff from four a
couple of years ago down to one today. “We have to find other resources
to farm his salary because it’s just not covered with what we have,”
McCauley said.

Such reductions come at a time when most agencies
are faced with a growing demand for their services. The National
Alliance to End Homelessness has estimated the number of homeless in the
U.S. could increase by 5 percent, or 74,000, in the next three years.

In
addition, cuts to homeless prevention could have a lasting negative
impact on the state’s economy. A report by the Center for Tax and
Budget Accountability released in last May estimated that for every $1 that was
being spent on prevention programs, $4 was saved in the reduction of
other costs related to homelessness, such as hospital stays,
incarceration and shelters.

Despite concerns, Dworkin said she
remained optimistic that funding for emergency and transitional housing could
be restored when the legislature votes on a supplemental appropriations
bill next week.

As far as restoring homeless prevention
program funding, she said her group planned to lobby to have the money
included as a part next year’s state budget, scheduled to be
introduced by Gov. Pat Quinn in February.

In response to the
question of the impact the current cuts would have on agencies servicing
the homeless, Illinois Department of Human Services spokeswoman Januari
Smith Trader said the governor was in the process of working with
lawmakers on ways to reallocate money to best address the needs of the
state.

“Obviously the department hopes it [homelessness
prevention funding] will be restored,” she said. “This is a great
program that helps many folks either while they are homeless, or
prevents them from being homeless especially in these tough economic
times.”